TV Recap: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ 8×09 – ‘Dark was the Night’

The latest episode is a game changer for these actors' characters (L to R): Kim Raver, Sandra Oh, and Kevin McKidd. Photo: Pop Tower

Shonda Rhimes, what did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?

The medical drama has its fair share of mediocre episodes—the kind that made some Grey’s Anatomy fans stop watching years ago. However, I stuck with the show and I’m glad I did. Case in point: The awesome season 6.

Season 8 is no different in this matter, especially the first few episodes, which were ho-hum. Then, it got better again … and then the ninth episode happened.

Depending on who you talk to, this is either a terrific or horrible episode. Rhimes, the show runner, is either a genius or a bitch. Call it sitting on the fence, but I think all of the aforementioned applies.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

The episode is terrific, but some horrible stuff happens. After I gathered myself, I think Rhimes is a genius, but I get why others are calling her bitch. You only have to go on Tumblr to see the hate.

When they cast Scott Foley as Kim Raver’s love interest, I was totally on board. Foley, if nothing else, is an incredibly charming actor. Perfect for someone wooing a stranger/doctor (aka Raver) who just handed him health insurance.

And I was fairly confident that the producers and writers weren’t going to kill him because that would be a complete recycling of the Izzie and Denny storyline. Patient and doctor fall in love, patient dies, cue heartbreak. I thought, “No way would they do that. And if they did, they wouldn’t be able to come up with an original and poignant way for Foley to die.”

But the thing is? They did.

It’s inconceivable that they killed a great character and in the process, a happily married couple … but you’ve got to hand it to Rhimes. She did it in a way that’s so provocative and incredibly heartbreaking and in a way that’s going to change the dynamic among the characters from this point forward.

It’s in the storyline where Sandra Oh, who just recovered from a recent trauma in season 6, unknowingly operates on Foley and fails. She doesn’t try to do more because she doesn’t think there is more. She thinks it’s just another patient, not the husband of her mentor. And when Oh finds out …

It’s in the writing where Kevin McKidd can’t tell Raver that her husband is dead. The news would traumatize Raver, who is in the middle of an operation that only she can perform. So, he pretends everything is fine as Raver continues to talk to him about her husband in the O.R. And the scene fades out …

And we don’t get another episode until January 2012. Now, that’s a bitch.